I have had a look at the patch, and while I agree that this should be documented, I am not happy with the patch as it is.
I think we should *not* document that under "server configuration". This is confusing and will lead people to think that a role is a configuration parameter. But you cannot add role = myrole to "postgresql.conf". A role is not a GUC. I think that the place to document this is doc/src/sgml/ref/alter_role.sgml. The second hunk of the patch is in the right place: --- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/set_role.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/set_role.sgml @@ -53,9 +53,13 @@ RESET ROLE </para> <para> - The <literal>NONE</literal> and <literal>RESET</literal> forms reset the current - user identifier to be the current session user identifier. - These forms can be executed by any user. + The <literal>NONE</literal> form resets the current user identifier to the + current session user identifier. The <literal>RESET</literal> form resets + the current user identifier to the default value. The default value can be + the command-line option value, the per-database default setting, or the + per-user default setting for the originally authenticated session user, if + any such settings exist. Otherwise, the default value will be the current + session user identifier. These forms can be executed by any user. </para> </refsect1> Perhaps this could be reworded in a simpler fashion, like: <literal>SET ROLE NONE</literal> sets the user identifier to the current session identifier, as returned by the <function>session_user</function> function. <literal>RESET ROLE</literal> sets the user identifier to the value it had after you connected to the database. This can be different from the session identifier if <literal>ALTER DATABASE</literal> or <literal>ALTER ROLE</literal> were used to assign a different default role. (I hope what I wrote is correct.) Yours, Laurenz Albe
